Does your business require customers to sign waivers, register, or complete information? If so, are you taking advantage of the marketing opportunities to build text and email lists, get more reviews, and bring customers back? In this blog post I’ll be discussing some simple strategies to turn your registration process into a revenue generating marketing channel.

The advantage of waivers and registration.
If you’ve ever thought of your waivers as a burden, or some sort of necessary evil, I urge you to reconsider. Millions of dollars are spent each year trying to incentivize customers to provide their data via loyalty programs and drawings. However; when a waiver is required, customers generally provide their data without thinking twice. Therein lies the advantage. By strategically asking marketing questions in conjunction with a waiver or registration process, you can launch great marketing campaigns. Can you make it required for customers to join a marketing list? No. But you can require people to answer whether they’d like to get updates and offers as a part of completing the waiver. And, our experience shows it can drastically pay off.

Utah State Quadruples The Size of Their Marketing List with Digital Registration.
In effort to increase occupancy, Utah State Housing offers a text-line for students to get offers and updates. For the first several years of the program, students could sign up by texting a keyword or visiting the housing office. Every year they’d get 15%-20% of their students to sign up for updates. However, in more recent years, they’ve integrated this option into their registration process and now require students to answer yes or no to the text-line. It continues to be an optional program for student’s to join but USU Housing now has more than 90% of their students participate every year! By requiring students to answer the question as part of the signup process, USU Housing increased participation from 20% to over 90%.

The simplicity of asking.
As you can see from the example above, the secret to building marketing lists can often be as simple as asking. The problem is getting the chance to ask. If you have a waiver or registration process, it is paramount that you ask customers if they’d like to get offers and updates regarding your business. You won’t get everyone, but even a handful of people a day will generate thousands of customers a year that you can re-engage after they leave.

What should I ask for?
The answer to this question can differ based on your business; but, in general the missing piece is consent. Make sure you ask for consent. This can be done with a simple checkbox that says “I’d like to receive offers and updates via text or email” (for more details on consent and require verbiage, see related post: Text and Email Marketing Regulations. Other important information would be name, email, birthdate, cell phone number, and zip code. This information alone is enough to create great campaigns. If you feel your customers would entertain more, you could also ask about interests, feedback, or any other information that you could use in your marketing strategies. *If you use the CityGro digital waiver kiosk for waivers and registration, you will automatically get the date of each visit so you can run campaigns to customers based on how long since they last came in!

What do I do with the data?
Obviously, the data you collect doesn’t do you any good if kept in a drawer. If you aren’t using a digital kiosk or waiver system like CityGro, there will be some manual entry here. Weigh out the pros/cons/costs of entering it manually verses a digital waiver system; one way or another, you need to get your data into a marketing platform for text and email engagement (ready for the CityGro pitch? CityGro offers both of these systems in one!).

Create campaigns.
With customer data at your disposal, you can now engage customers. You can send emails or texts to customers who haven’t been in for a while, remind them about specials, or encourage them to leave a review at the end of their visit!

Take advantage of your waivers and build your marketing list. Once you do, you’ll find a whole new ability to grow your business by repeatedly engaging the customers who already know and love your product.